Bloody Roses
by Literatureaddict
Summary: A wealthy family of five with a haunting past moves to Woodcrest. They change the lives of many around them and they seem perfect, but their closets aren't big enough to hold all of skeletons inside of them. This is my first story and it contains OCs. Please R&R.
1. Woodcrest

Candice's P.O.V

The room was completely black. It was as if there was a thick blanket covering my eyes. _He_ was coming closer and all that I could do was pray. I prayed harder than I ever had in my entire life. Now of course I prayed before every meal and every night before bed, but I had never prayed with so much desperation before. I never had the need to. "Oh God, please. NO!"

I jolted forward, with the last word bouncing off of my tongue in a shout before I slapped a hand over my mouth. My eyes shot open, a waterfall of tears running over my cheekbones. "Hey, Candice it's alright. It was only a nightmare", soothed my dearest brother Trent. I had calmed down within seconds of my outburst, and gathered my surroundings. I was sitting in a dark blue leather chair identical to many around me, each one held a person. They were staring, great. I had a nightmare on an airplane.

The thing about Trent is, he isn't really my brother, but he might as well be. His mother, Seraphine, decided to take my younger sister, Raquel and I in a little over five years ago after we lost our parents. Seraphine was a gorgeous black woman with deep brown eyes. She also appeared to never age, so it wouldn't surprise anyone that she's an actress/model. She originally had only two children, Trent and her younger daughter, Kathryn, who was three years Trent's junior. Kathryn was also my half-sister, thanks to my male parent. She also happened to be the same age as Raquel, who is 15. It's not every day a man's "baby's mama" wants to take care of his kids. Can you say _drama_?

We're all from Los Angeles, California but due to many complications with our dysfunctional "family" we had to move to Miami, Florida. Miami was okay and it wasn't too different from LA. We still had beaches, the sun, and its burning heat. I began to like it there after about a year, but Seraphine had gotten bored with the sun and the beaches. At least that's what I assume because right now we were on a plane to Baltimore, Maryland, which is two hours from the suburbs of Woodcrest, Maryland. You could only imagine my distaste for this sudden migration north. Seraphine was born and raised here and her mother was very close friends with an old man by the name of Ed Wuncler, who owned the whole city, so she didn't even have to make a deposit on the house that we had there. I had one huge problem with Woodcrest; it was nothing like LA or Miami.

We had finally landed, and I was immediately filled with both relief and dread. Four hours was a long time to be sitting in a chair, so when I was able to stand and walk around, I was in fact relieved. Then I realized we had a two hour drive to Woodcrest, and I cursed Seraphine's name for doing this to us. When we arrived at the house it was around ten o'clock and I didn't care about anything, but sleep. The movers had already moved all of our furniture into the house, so all we had to do was unpack our clothes. I thanked God that tomorrow was Sunday as I begrudgingly found my way to what would be my bedroom. I yanked off my boots and did the same with my jeans and my sweatshirt, leaving me in my underwear and a t-shirt. I flopped down onto my bed and moved about until I was nestled in the comfort of my blankets. I lay in bed staring off into the darkness of the four walls that I now called mine, mentally preparing myself for Woodcrest. I had a feeling about this place, but I was indecisive on whether or not it was good or bad. I decided to wait until I wasn't drifting in and out of consciousness to figure it out.


	2. Exploring

Candice's P.O.V

The next morning consisted of unpacking and organizing. I was in the middle of putting away the last of my toiletries when I heard footsteps on the tiles of my bathroom floor.

"Looks like you got the best room in the house, aside from Seraphine's anyway."

I looked up to see Racquel standing in the doorway of the bathroom with her nose scrunched up as she looked at me. I let out a light chuckle at her expression.

"Whatever Rocky," I said as I shook my head and turned to finish putting away my toiletries. "I'm serious, your closet is huge. I think Seraphine's trying to kiss up to you." I scoffed at that. "I highly doubt that and are you done unpacking yet? I wanna go do some exploring around three," I replied dismissing her theory.

"I'm almost finished." I raised an eyebrow with a knowing look. "How close to finished is almost." She looked at me and tugged on her fingers. "Racquel?" She stamped her foot and sighed. "Okay, I still have to unpack my clothes but that's all," she squeaked and squeezed her eyes shut.

"Rocky what have you been doing all this time, it's past twelve already? All you had to do was unpack your clothes and shoes."

" I know. I know, but I unpacked all my shoes and put all of my stuff in my bathroom." She gave me a goofy smile and I fought a grin. "Alright, but hurry and finish and get ready when you're done. If you aren't ready by the time I walk out of the door, I'm leaving you." She smiled knowing that it was an empty threat and left to go finish unpacking. I smiled and put the last of my things into a cabinet.

I flopped down onto my bed exhausted. I had been up since six unpacking. It was times like this that I hated the amount of clothes that I owned. I was tired, hungry, and far beyond stressed. I reached over to grab my phone off of my nightstand to check the time. It was one forty-two. I pushed myself off of my bed taking my phone with me. I hooked it up to my sound bar with bluetooth and turned on Pandora.

I went back into my bathroom and undressed myself putting my clothes in my hamper. I stepped into the shower and turned on the water. My head was spinning. I was overwhelmed with emotion. I had been keeping myself busy to avoid this all morning. I had done everything possible to keep my mind off of the anxiety. I made sure everything was organized perfectly. My clothes were pressed and hung up in my closet. My tops, bottoms, and dresses all had their own spaces and they were color coded. I cleaned my room although it wasn't close to being dirty. I had become the epitome of OCD. The hot water ran through my hair and down my body releasing the tension from my muscles but not quite from my mind. I didn't want to be here. I didn't want to go to a new school. I didn't want to have to start all over _again_. I didn't want any of this. We didn't get an explanation or a warning. Seraphine had come into the house two weeks ago and told us we were moving here.

I stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel from a shelf and dried myself off. Then I grabbed my white robe from the hook on the bathroom door and wrapped it around my body. I reached over to grab my blow dryer out of the cabinet and dried my hair out.

"Rocky are you ready yet," I yelled as I made my way down the stairs. "Yeah, just give me a second and I'll be down." I walked into the living room with my keys in my hand and my purse on my forearm. Trent and Kathryn sat on the couch watching something on the tv. "Where are you two going," I asked looking at their clothes. They turned their eyes away from the tv to look up at me. "With you," Trent answered holding his hand out. I walked over to him and put the keys in his hand. "When are we leaving?" I heard quick footsteps on the stairs. "Right now," I said looking back at Racquel as she rushed down the stairs.

"Alright let's go," Trent said and we all made our way out of the door.

We had gone to see what our new school looked like. It was really large and had big white pillars in front with a red banner that read "Wuncler High School, Home of the Wolves" in large white letters. The building was mainly brick, but the front was all white giving a grand appearance. Seraphine had called Friday to register us all. All we had to do was go to the front office and get our schedule. After we left the school we looked for a place to eat because we were practically starving. We found a nice Mexican restaurant that had _real Mexican food. _We then went to the mall which was called, _unsurprisingly, _Wuncler Mall. I was starting to gather that Ed Wuncler was pretty full of himself.

"How does this look," Kathryn asked holding up a black leather vest and a black long-sleeved dress with white hieroglyphics all over it. "That's really cute," I said while looking through a rack of dresses. "I know," she replied with a smile. "Then why'd you ask?" I said smirking. "Oh whatever." Kathryn was quite the fashionista. She had dreamed of being a designer since she first developed a fashion sense. She was really good at putting outfits together and her sketches were absolutely amazing. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that she could do it. We had been here for about two hours and we had a whole plethora of bags. "Hey where's Trent?" Racquel asked. "He went to go buy some shoes or something," Kathryn answered her. "Can we go get him? I saw a frozen yogurt shop and I want some." "Yeah" I said. Kathryn sucked her teeth and stomped her foot. "Oh my god why? I wanted to get some shoes to go with this," she said holding up the outfit. "Okay, stop being such a drama queen. We'll come back after." She sucked her teeth again. "Fine."

We walked to the Foot Locker. "Trent." I called walking toward him. He turned to look at me. "Wha's up?" "We're gonna get some frozen yogurt. Come on." He walked over to the check-out counter and placed two shoe boxes on top of it. "Alright but I gotta pay for these first." He turned back towards the cashier. I came to stand beside him while Kathryn and Racquel stood outside the store arguing about shoes and yogurt. "Will this be all?" The cashier asked Trent, looking at him. "Yeah that's it." Then the cashier looked back at the register and began to ring up the shoes. He constantly glanced up at me as he tapped the screen on the register.

The cashier bagged the shoes and Trent handed him his credit card. He slid the card and continued to stare at me while I pretended not to see. "Your boyfriend's a lucky guy," he told me referring to Trent. I scoffed. "He's not my boyfriend. He's my brother." His lips curled into a small smirk. "Oh, well wha's up ma?" I scoffed with disgust etched into my features. "The sky." I spat back, turning to a glaring Trent. "Can we go now?" He nodded his head still glaring at the clerk and we turned to leave. We walked back out of the store and met our two bickering younger siblings. This just keeps getting better. "You already have like a million pairs of shoes!" "Oh whatever, you're so fat, you're always eating!" People were staring, so I decided to step in. "Hey you two, that's enough. You're causing a scene." We started to walk toward the food court where the frozen yogurt shop was.

The shop was called Fro-Zone. We chose our yogurt, paid for it, and left to sit down in the food court. " Mmm, this is so good." "Oh my god Racquel, could you not talk with food in your mouth. Please. It's disgusting." Kathryn hissed at her, obviously still mad about not getting her shoes when she wanted. I rolled my eyes and put a scoop of the yogurt in my mouth. "You alw."- "Don't. Start." Trent cut her off. Kathryn folded her her arms and turned away, while Racquel lowered her head in shame.

We went home after about another hour of shopping we decided to go home. We all went out to dinner that night. Seraphine said that Wuncler was throwing us a welcoming party Friday. I don't really want to go to a party full of snobby rich people, but Seraphine said it would help us make new friends or whatever. I could care less how many friends I make, we'll just leave again anyway.


	3. First Day of School Pt1

Candice's P.O.V

"Good morning class. Please welcome our new student Candice Vidal." The teacher whose name tag said Paul A. Thompson said gesturing toward me. Most students gave a slight wave and some didn't even acknowledge our presence. I gave a small smile and turned to look at Mr. Thompson for further direction. "You can just take the seat next to Michael. Michael raise your hand." A dark-skinned dread headed boy that sat in the front row raised his hand and smiled at me. I halfheartedly returned the smile and took my seat next to him.

"Hey I'm Caesar." He said holding his hand out. "I thought it was Michael?" I said skeptically taking his hand and shaking it briefly. "Yeah it is, but I prefer Caesar." "Where are you from?" I asked noticing his accent. "I'm from Brooklyn, but my parents are from Jamaica. What about you? Where'd you come from?"

"I moved here from Miami, but I'm originally from LA."

"Wait are you one of Seraphine's kids?" He asked and I had to fight to hide the distaste I felt at his question. "No, no I'm not," I said sharply. He opened his mouth to say something, but he was cut off by the bell that dismissed us from homeroom.

"Hey, what class do you have next?" he asked and I handed him my schedule. He looked over it and handed it back to me. "You have Ms. Spank next period which is honors U.S history. Lucky for you I have that class too," he said smiling. He had a really pretty smile. He began to walk down the hall through the sea of teenagers and I followed not too far behind him.

"Hey Ms. Spank you have a new student." "Oh hello Caesar, and what is your name dear?" Ms. Spank had a smooth cocoa complexion and she looked like she was in her mid thirties. "Candice Vidal." "Ok everyone, I want you to say hello to Candice and make her feel welcome."

The replies were very different from the half dead students in homeroom. Some waved, some said some version of hello, and then there we're the cat calls and whistles. My favorite was "Aye ma lemme get yo' number."

"Ok class settle down. Candice you can sit wherever you like, we don't have assigned seats." I scanned the classroom for a place to sit. There weren't any seats open next to Caesar. There we're only three desks that we're empty. One in a dark corner in the back, _nope_. One next to 'Aye ma', _definitely not_. And one in front, next to a light skinned girl with curly strawberry blond hair and gorgeous green eyes. _Yep._

She seemed to be really excited about something because she had the hugest smile on her face as I sat down next to her. "Hi, I'm Jazmine." "Hello Jazmine." The rest of the day went the same. I would meet someone, show them my schedule, they would show me my next class, and then repeat the process.

I put my things in my locker and closed it. "Holy Shh! Oh my god you scared me." I said clutching my chest. Caesar and Jazmine were standing behind the the locker door that I had closed. Turns out the two of them were friends. "Sorry," Jazmine sweetly apologised, "We didn't mean to." "It's fine, what do you want?" Caesar spoke this time, "You're sitting with us at lunch." With that he walked past me and headed down the hall. Jazmine quickly followed suit. "Wait, what about my sisters and brother?" I asked following behind them. "They can sit with us too." Caesar said over his shoulder.

" Hey guys this is Candice, " Caesar said introducing me to a group of his friends. "Who's the other two?" An Asian boy said, looking past me. "These two are her sisters Kathryn and Racquel." "Hey," Racquel said with almost too much excitement, causing laughter to flow from the table of friends. She hung her head low in embarrassment. I was the first to sit out of the three of us. The other two. took their seats on both sides of me. Racquel kept her eyes on her tray and I patted her back as reassurance.

"Hey Huey!" My eyes followed Jazmine as she sat down next to a mass of brown hair. My breath caught in my throat at how beautiful his eyes were. They were the same color as the expensive red wine that Seraphine loves so much. They were so intense, it felt like he was searching for something in my soul. "...Candice?" "Huh?" I said snapping my head towards Caesar. "Are you ok?" He said with a semi concerned look. "Yeah, why?" "Because you zoned out." "Oh it's just.. um..your eyes are so strange. I didn't mean to stare." I said to Huey. "Yeah, I was thinking the same thing about you," he said addressing my blue eyes. Me and Raquel got that from my mom. "Anyway, like I was saying. That's Hiro," he said pointing to the Asian boy, "and the one you were staring at is Huey," Caesar teased.

"Yeah I figured, considering Jazmine shouted his name." I said teasing him back. " Touché," he said.

"So it must be awesome with your mom being famous and all," Hiro said. "What are you talking about," I said. "Seraphine is your mom right?"he asked. "No." "Yes." Me and Kathryn said at the same time. We turned to look at each other and I shot her glare. "Wait, I thought you said that she wasn't your mom. I mean, if you're trying to hide it because you think we'll go crazy because your mom's famous. Don't flatter yourself." Caesar said. "She isn't my mom." I said sharply then stood up and left the cafeteria.

No One's P.O.V.

"What's wrong with her?" Hiro asked Racquel. "Oh um, It's a uh.. really touchy subject for her." "Why?" Jazmine spoke this time. "Uh.. actually it's pretty touchy for the both of us. I don't really wanna talk about it." Racquel replayed. "Oh, I'm sorry." Jazmine apologized. "No it's fine. So tell us more about Woodcrest."


End file.
